Cinderella Desk. Beware. Sad ending.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about desks alot.   Hey, I’m not the only one!   A good friend posted the following riddle on his Facebook status yesterday:

“Have you any idea why a raven is like a writing desk?”

The answer to this riddle, apparently, is in the book Alice in Wonderland:

Alice sighed wearily. “I think you might do something better with the time,” she said, “than wasting it in asking riddles that have no answers.”

But I digress.  This post is not about Alice in Wonderland.   It is a Cinderella story.   About a desk. 

Desks.   You may be sitting at one.   I sure spend a lot of time at mine.   And I love to give them “Cinderella Makeovers.” 

I rescued this particular desk.  I found it at one of my favorite haunts.  You guessed it.  GOODWILL!

Here’s the before.   Can you believe this ugly specimen cost $49?

I guess even Goodwill has inflation! Here’s a before shot of the top. Eeegads!

What did I like about this desk anyway?   Well, it had good bones and the drawers slid out pretty well.   I peered inside a drawer and saw something engraved. “Drexel Heritage”.   Hey I’ve heard of that manufacturer! 

And in small print it said, “Touraine Collection.”

Whatever.

So I shelled out the $49 bucks and hauled it home.   Went online and learned the Touraine Collection was made in the 1960s.  Some Craigslist ads priced pieces at up to $450.

SCORE!

So what did I do to give it its Cinderella makeover? 

PAINTED IT of course! 

I thought it would look cool in an antique white color with an olive green trim.   Just give it a newer, but still vintagey,  look.     So  I used a line of decorative paints from Caromal Colours.   This is cool paint– the texture is like putty.  You just smoosh it on with a paint brush. It dries really fast and cleans up with water.  I LOVE easy paint clean-ups!   After it dried I took a damp rag and smeared on some Caromal Colours toner into the nooks and crannies.   Here’s what it looked like when I was done. 

Now I’m no perfectionist, and I’m no professional painter.   But for $49 and some paint it looks pretty good, huh?  Don’t you just LOVE a good Cinderella story?

But I have to tell you something.  Please don’t get mad at me.  

We don’t have this desk anymore.  

Nope.

We got a new sofa, and had no room anywhere for this desk as it was too big.   So guess what I did? 

Yep. 

I gave it back to Goodwill.